Tagged: OERV

2016 MORPS projections are finally ready. Unlike the baseline projections published several weeks ago, these projections include all players projected to win a MLB roster spot on opening day. I have also included a number of impact rookies who are projected to join a roster early or mid-season in 2016. Rookie projections use stats generated during either minor league or international play. Factors are applied to adjust the stats to MLB equivalent stats. MORPS projections also account for expected adjustments in personal playing time.

The excel version of the projections include a key tab that defines all headings used in the projections. In short, fantasy baseball players that play in rotisserie leagues should key on the R-ROTO and ROTO columns. ROTO is a point value derived from weights on the categories in a standard 5×5 rotisserie league. R-ROTO is the player ranking based upon the ROTO point values. If you league uses a customer scoring system, you can use the projections in the categories of interest to customize your rankings. Fantasy baseball players that play in a more realistic format like Baseball Manager or a similar simulation league should reorder the pitching based upon OERV and the batting based upon RC. OERV stands for Out Earned Run Value. This stat attempts to value a pitcher by combining ERA with the value of number of innings pitched. This is a way for fantasy managers in simulation leagues to compare the value of a relief pitcher with a starter or a starter who pitches 200 innings with one that pitches 100 with a slightly lower ERA. RC is Runs Created. A league like Baseball Manager uses RC as a basis for the points they generate in their daily games. The more realistic the simulation, the closer the hitting will align with RC.

For those who like to resort the projections for their own fantasy system, make sure you filter out the players with a roster status of “N”. These players will most likely not make an opening day 25 man roster. Those players who were still in competition for a position were included with a roster status of “Y” in most cases. I posted the “N” players for those managers who have keeper leagues or deeper rosters that may want to pull one of these folks onto their list.

MORPS projections are late coming this year. I’ve delivered a set of baseline projections several weeks ago. However, you’ll find that the actual projections have some drastic differences. I’m always amazed by the amount of player movement during the off season.

The Major-League Obie Role-Based Projection System (MORPS) uses four years of player performance data for all hitters. Since I started playing with Sabermetrics using Tango’s Marcel system, the first iteration of MORPS four years ago used the same formulas. After learning the basics, the batter formulas were adjusted to include the most recent four years of performance data. Adjustments were also made for player age, home ballpark data and expected playing time. The most complicated part of the system is the regression formulas. Tango provided formulas for his three year model. I had to crack open the math books to figure out how to transition the formulas to a four year model.

One of the most time consuming tasks in developing the system was determining the proper mean for player regression. If the goal was to ensure that the mean of all the projections competed favorably with end of year player means, the task would have been straight forward. However, my goal was to make the actual player projections as accurate as possible. “Role-Based” means that the player projections are regressed to position specific means. National League means are also separated from American League means.

While conducting research, I noticed that most projection systems used minor league stats as well as any available major league stats to project the future performance of young players. There are even formulas that anticipate player regression when entering the majors. The interesting thing is that Tango’s Marcel system does just as good at predicting rookie performance as other projection systems and he doesn’t use any minor league stats. Some players are great in the minors and simply can’t make the jump to the major leagues. Some players start out great, but find that major league pitchers start exploiting weaknesses they never knew they had. Others outperform all expectations. By calculating the reliability of a player’s projection using only major league data, MORPS adds a proportional dosage of a player’s positional mean to complete a rookie’s player projection. Since we are focused on individual player performance, I didn’t see the point of including all minor league stats when the results don’t seem to provide significant value. The last year of a rookies minor league or international season is included, with appropriate adjustments for competition, if no major league experience exists. While efforts have been made to adjust projections to reflect anticipated playing time, players who have a roster flag of “N” are projected using baseline projections only.

Pitching Projections

The formulas used to create pitcher projections are very similar to those that we have already discussed with batters. MORPS uses four years of data to create a pitcher projection. Adjustments are made for age, home field and anticipated role. The reliability of a projection is calculated based upon the amount of data available for a particular player. Someone with low reliability will regress more to a position specific mean than someone that has faced a lot of major league batters over the last four years.

The big difference between projecting pitchers and batters is the usage disparity between relief pitchers and starting pitchers. A good relief pitcher may face 350 batters in a season. A top end starting pitcher may pitch to 900 batters in a season. The plate appearances for position players are typically not dependent on role. A first baseman and shortstop may both have 600 plate appearances over the course of a year. Their position means will be different. First basement will typically have higher power stats while shortstops have higher speed stats. But, they are similar enough that their projections can be calculated using the same basic formulas. The disparity between relief and starting pitchers forces them to be calculated very differently. For months I struggled with pitching projections. When I finally figured out that starting pitchers and relief pitchers had to be calculated separately, everything fell in place.

Updates have been posted for both batting and pitching projections. These updates include all players that are currently projected to make each team’s 25 man roster according to MLBDEPTHCHARTS. A large number of non-roster players have also been included. However, non-roster players have not been “modeled” for MORPS projections. This means that their projection is based only on historical and mean data. All active players are assigned a rotorank prior to non-roster players. Thus, all non-roster players are at the end of the MORPS projections. This includes free agents. If some of these players actually win a roster position, compare their roto column to those of active players to decide where they should be slotted. For simulation leagues, you would use the RC column for batters and OERV for pitchers.

You will notice a new stat category has been introduced that is unique to MORPS – OERV. OERV stands for out earned run value. This new stat attempts to rank pitchers based upon a combination of performance (earned runs allowed) and the number of outs generated for their team. For example, Aroldis Chapman is expected to have a slightly better ERA than Matt Cain. However, Cain is projected to pitch 211 innings compared to Chapman’s 175. As a result, Cain’s OERV is better than Chapman. For those that play rotisserie baseball, a combination stat like this may not have value. You just want to get the best players in each of X specific categories. Head to head simulation leagues, like baseball manager (BBM), use sabermetric calculations to determine daily winners. These leagues will probably find this new stat very useful. This stat attempts to answer the old question that every fantasy manager in these leagues ask on draft day – “When should I opt for a pitcher that eats innings over the pitcher with a lower ERA”.